1 STUDY GUIDE FOR WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15 FROM RABBI NANUS ABRAHAM, SARAH, and HAGAR PART ONE: GENESIS 16:1-13 16 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.” 6 “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her. 7 The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered. 9 Then the angel of the LORD told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” 10 The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.” 11 The angel of the LORD also said to her: “You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael,[a] for the LORD has heard of your misery. 12 He will be a wild donkey of a man; 2 his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward[b] all his brothers.” 13 She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen[c] the One who sees me.” 14 That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi[d]; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered. 15 So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael. What is going on with each person in this story emotionally and psychologically? Analyze the family dynamics. What are the relationships between – Sari and Avram. Sarai and Hagar, Hagar and Avram? What is your analysis of their characters? Is anyone’s behavior acceptable, in your opinion? Interpret God’s blessing to Hagar. PART TWO: GENESIS 21: 9-21 Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian whom she bore to Abraham playing. She said to Abraham, “Cast out that slave-woman and her son. For the son of that slave shall not share in the inheritance with my son, Isaac. This matter distressed Abraham greatly, for it concerned a son of his. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed over the boy or your slave. Everything that Sarah says to you, heed her voice, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be continued for you. As for the son of the slave-woman, I will make a nation of him, too, for he is your seed.” Early the next morning, Abraham took some bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He placed them over her shoulder together with the child and sent them away. And she wandered about the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water was gone from the skin, she left the child under one of the bushes and went and sat down at a distance, a bowshot away. For she thought, “Let me not look on as the child dies.” And she sat at a distance, raised her voice and wept. 3 God heard the voice of the lad and an angel of God called to Hagar from the heavens and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Rise, lift up the lad and hold him by the hand for I will make him a great nation.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the lad to drink. God was with the lad and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness and became a bowsman. He lived in the wilderness of Paran and his mother took him a wife from the land of Egypt. “ Our story begins with a blended family after Sarah instructed Abraham to take her longtime handmaid Hagar as a second wife and have a child with her. Hagar is from Egypt and her name has the same Hebrew spelling as the word ha-ger, the stranger or foreigner or the Other. As a side note, there is a foreshadowing of the Jewish experience of being a foreigner in connection to Hagar. It is no coincidence that Hagar, the Other, is from Egypt. The Torah frequently tells us to remember our experience of being gerim in Egypt and to learn from that experience how we must treat others: וַאֲהַבְתֶּ֖ם א ת־הַגֵּ֑ר כ ִּֽ י־ג ר ִ֥ ים הֱי ית ֶּ֖ ם בְא ִ֥רץ מ צְרִּֽ ים׃ And you must lovingly treat the ger for you were gerim in the land of Egypt. (Deut 10:19). This week’s reading shows some of the ways we can easily fail in the fulfilling of this commandment. We learn in the previous parasha that Ishmael, Hagar’s son, is given his name by an angel of God, with the meaning of his name explained that God has heard Hagar’s suffering. Today’s verses subtly dehumanizes Hagar and Ishmael with Ishmael becoming nameless, referred to as simply the boy or Hagar’s son. With the disappearance of his name, we hear a hint of the deafening of the ears to her suffering. Hagar too has a shift in names which signal a diminishing of her status. Previously she was called the shifcha, handmaid, and was connected to Sarah, or ha-isha, the woman, now she gets called the amah – a slave or servant with no indication of a relationship with Sarah. Something happens that upsets Sarah. We don’t know what. And Sarah demands that Hagar and her son, be banished from their joint household. All we are told is that Sarah saw the son of Hagar mezahek – playing or laughing or doing something related to Yizhak, whose name is derived from the same root, lezahek, which means to laugh. A number of midrashim and commentators, perhaps out of a desire to justify Sarah’s actions and blame Ishmael, choose to explain this verb mezahek in deeply negative terms suggesting he was involved in sexual abuse, shooting arrows at Isaac, killing and idolatry. This is a familiar 4 trope. When you want to diminish someone’s worth, convict or expel, it is common practice to label or accuse that person of being a criminal or dangerous. Sarah feels threatened by Ishmael doing something too familiar to her son, something which might indicate him as equal. Sarah’s solution is to demand their expulsion, without referring to them by name, and proclaim that the son of that slave woman will not inherit his father’s resources alongside his half-brother Isaac. Another familiar trope – there is not enough resources to go around. She will ensure he does not take from Isaac what she believes is HIS inheritance, what belongs to HIM and him alone. Perhaps as a correction to Sarah’s demand, before Abraham’s death, in a later story in Genesis, we learn that Abraham personally gives Ishmael and his additional sons by concubines, gifts, making sure they are not left with nothing (25:6). And both Ishmael and Isaac, show up as equal sons at the moment of their father’s death, burying their father together (25:9). Sarah, in her demand to get rid of Hagar and her son uses a rare and strong verb. ג רֵ֛ ׁש ה א מ ִ֥ה הַזֶּ֖ את וְא ת־בְנ ֵּּ֑ה Expel this slave woman and her son. This verb is used only one other place in the Torah. It is used in the 10th plague (Exodus 11:1) describing that the Jews will be forcibly removed and driven out of Egypt, permanently ending their ties with their former home. Sarah’s order is clear – permanent expulsion. Deportation. To make this order happen, Sarah turns to her husband Abraham, and gives him instructions in no uncertain terms. With this order, we are given a rare peek into Abraham’s emotions: וַי ֵּ֧רַ ע הַד ב ֵ֛ר מְ א ֶּ֖ד עבְ ינ ֵ֣י אַבְר הֵּ֑ם עֶַּ֖ל אֹוד ִ֥ ת בְנִּֽ ֹו׃ The matter distressed Abraham greatly, for it concerned a son of his. It is not clear what distressed Abraham and about which son he is concerned. Rashi suggests that there are two very different ways to understand his distress. Abraham might be distressed by Sarah’s demands to banish his son Ishmael. OR Abraham might be distressed by hearing Ishmael had taken to negative behavior. Responding to his distress, God tells Abraham not to be distressed about the boy or your slave woman, and that his offspring shall be through Isaac and that God will also make Ishmael into a nation as he too is Abraham’s seed.